[decebalus1]

Survival is easy. I mean not easy-easy but I mean survival is a pretty low bar. There are ton of places on the planet that don't benefit from the 'modern economy'. Hell, there are places that are actually getting screwed over the by the 'modern economy' and there are war torn anarchy-ridden places (for real anarchy, not the Fox News take on Seattle) and people still survive, procreate, etc.. if you actually want to talk extremes. Granted they're not developing new mRNA vaccines or something.

This modern economy is the exact religion that preaches the same gospel in the blog post: Maslow's pyramid of needs dictates that you need to work. Which is.. fine, I guess? My problem with that is that the work has become super productive in the past decades and that excess production allows only a fraction of people to stop working. Coupled with replacing the benefits of an actual community with the downgrade which is a workplace to give you that sense of belonging, self-sufficiency propaganda and employer-only provided healthcare, you get a nation of wage slaves.

We don't really need to work. I mean not all of us. A lot of the work done nowadays is bullshit [1]. The pandemic kinda showed us exactly who needs to go work to keep society going. The rest is just the result of:

- inertial protestant ethic

- wealth hoarding by the owners of production

- people tied to their workplace are easier to persuade/manage/manipulate politically

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

[amw-zero]

You miss pretty much the entire point of the article, as well as the purpose of life in general.

Work is good for the worker. Because humans need a purpose in life. We don't even need to experiment to see what society would be like if no one worked and a few robots produced our food. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking this would be a utopia - no, it would be a worse dystopia than you could possibly imagine.

Take away people's purpose, and you will be left with a bunch of morally bankrupt people with lots of time on their hands. Pretty clear recipe for constant depression and war.

I'll read the book before I comment on it directly.

[_dw7s]

> as well as the purpose of life in general.

That's unnecessarily condescending.

> Work is good for the worker.

That's some hardcore boomer logic right there..

> Because humans need a purpose in life.

Work is work and jobs are jobs. You can work without a job and you can have a purpose in life without a 9 to 5. Homemakers don't work or have no purpose in life? You're talking about a different thing here.. I was referring to what people are required to do in order to survive, eat and have shelter in modern society, not have purpose and fulfillment. Does caring for sick relatives with no pay constitute work in your view? Or is that person a slacker and a burden on society? If your purpose in life is your shitty 9 to 5 job then you kinda failed at life. I'm pretty sure the person blowing the leaves of the sidewalk doesn't stay awake at night with an existential life crisis thinking that he missed a spot.

It's the exact same narrative I always have to defend against when talking about financial independence. This is not to say people will be idle and just sit around doing nothing. People still do 'things' whether or not the things they do make money or not.

> left with a bunch of morally bankrupt people

There's that disgusting protestant work ethic again. It's really baked into the fabric of our society.. It's not your fault. Read a book or two, open your mind, I guarantee you'll recover.